Scientists find “lost world” of marine life on seafloor near Antarctica

A new paper (see text) published in PLoS Biology has provided some amazing views of life along hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica.

British scientists, studying the ocean floor nearly 1.5 miles beneath the icy surface, have found new species of yeti crab, starfish, barnacles, and sea anemones, and even an octopus at the depths.

The “black smokers,” or hydrothermal vents, where the marine life exists reach temperatures in excess of 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

Interestingly the life found at these hydrothermal vents varies significantly that made in the first discovery of hydrothermal vent life, back in the 1970s, on the Galapagos Rift, as well as elsewhere since then.

“What we didn’t find is almost as surprising as what we did,” said Oxford University zoologist Alex Rogers, who led the research. “Many animals such as tubeworms, vent mussels, vent crabs, and vent shrimps, found in hydrothermal vents in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, simply weren’t there.”

As exciting as this lost world of marine life is, it all the more whets my appetite for what might be lurking beneath the ice of Europa.

9 Responses

There is a lot of talk about the ice cap there melting. It is. But it is NOT due to global warming.

There are more that 3000 active volcanoes under water that never appear on the surface. Many of them are around Antartica – and they are warming the water there enough to melt the ice cap. This life there is proof of that.

These species did not “emerge” last week. They have likely been isolated for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years in this environment. So I don’t think this “balances” the extinction of other species; they were on the earth at the same time even if you were unaware of them.